Category: Issue 03

In the first issue we printed an article entitled “The Homosexual and Venereal Disease”, which we felt contained, along with very sound medical advice, some unpleasant and unnecessary moral attitudes. On consulting another doctor about this, he told us that “it is written in medical prose where words have a precise meaning without any associated concepts that may occur in ordinary prose” – in other words, it did not carry any moral overtones.

The article began by stating that, “the two main reservoirs of venereal disease in this country …. are the promiscuous female and the promiscuous ‘passive’ homosexual male”.

To me, this paints a rather impossible picture ….. after all, how did they get V.D. in the first place. If we must distribute ‘blame’ – which in itself seems a stupid thing to do – then surely the ‘promiscuous’ heterosexual male and the ‘promiscuous’ ‘active’ homosexual male ought to come in for an equal share of it? But in any case, only another doctor could (possibly) read it as “medical prose …without any associated concepts” – to anyone else, these words are bound to carry some connotations, and doctors should surely be aware of this, and take account of it when dealing with ordinary people? Using words which, to the layman, inevitably have a disapproving ring (whether they are meant like that or not) can only defeat the object of the exercise, which is to encourage people not to be ashamed about requesting treatment for something which could happen to any of us.

Another error, and one which the medical profession seems peculiarly addicted to, is the division of male gays into rigid categories of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ – it hardly needs me to say that people are generally more interesting than that. Perhaps it stems from doctors thinking largely in heterosexual terms.

But why should the whole attitude of the medical profession revolve around finding and treating individual cases? How much time, effort, and money is being devoted to the other side of it – to preventative vaccines, routine screenings, research into the eradication of V.D. generally? Not very much, I would guess. After all, the treatment clinics, in the main, are clearly kept short of money. No doubt the Festival of Lighters and their cohorts would be down like a ton of bricks if V.D. treatment and research were ever given a higher priority in hospital budgeting – on the grounds that if people weren’t “promiscuous” (i.e. remained frustrated and repressed) the dangers wouldn’t exist. Is it not true to say that V.D. is being used as a moral weapon in defence of the established uptight morality? Or to put it another way, it’s easier to reinforce the guilt people feel about sex than it is to embark on a comprehensive programme of research and treatment in order to remove one of the risks involved. And it’s cheaper too.

Despite their rather high opinion of themselves, doctors, like policemen, are only people like anybody else. Amongst people generally, there is an appalling amount of ignorance about gayness, and an equally appalling amount of prejudice, and doctors are just as likely to be prejudiced as anyone else. You may fall foul of one who, whilst treating you for V.D., will attempt to persuade you to be ‘treated’ for homosexuality too, as if it were some sort of sickness. Or he may over emphasise the seriousness of whatever you’ve got, or just be downright rude, inconsiderate, and even cruel. With such doctors, the important thing to remember is that, when it comes to gayness, you know more about it than he does – his training will only have covered the subject in the narrowest way. And even if he’s gay himself, it’s no guarantee that he doesn’t think of gayness as some sort of abnormality. At a V.D. clinic, the only thing he’s expert at is treating V.D. – he’s probably lousy at human relations.

And although a gay man probably has more guilt and prejudice to contend with when seeking treatment for V.D., he mustn’t let that deter him. It is important to have regular blood tests, it is important to be tested the moment you think you might have caught V.D. I gather that women are not usually asked, or don’t say, whether they contracted the disease heterosexually or homosexually, so their gayness doesn’t necessarily affect the doctor’s attitude (which can be unpleasant enough anyway).

V.D, with the exception of the new and fortunately still rare strains like ‘Hanoi Rose’, is no great horror if it is diagnosed and treated promptly

Why oh why must the minority of gay campaigners always use foul language, clown-tactics and general public rudeness? to put our case (what is our case)? over. We (the majority) don’t want it done this way.

You will find that the majority of gay people argue their way of love with calm, sensible reason. Public bodies, i.e.: Central Government, Local Government. Police and social services etc; would rather listen to sensible suggestions and requests than take heed of ‘Gay-Circus’.

Instead of constantly criticising and giving abuse to Court and Government decisions, no matter how unjust, why not try appeals, reasoned public support.

If law is unjust or a bad one then the public will have it changed, in time. Don’t treat the public as a moronic TV audience, but get about and inform them of the facts, as we see them, ask, politely, for their help. It is amazing how many people, when informed of a wrong, will give help and advice. All it takes is a PLEASE, some thing that seems to be lacking.

Why are the gay organisations segrating us from our fellow man and woman? We’re not zoo specimens, we are ordinary, yes ordinary, humans who want to live life our way, and love our way. Segregation will NOT bring public recognition of our way of life. We MUST mix, we cannot make ourselves into an island.

Why are there not more reports from CHE and CHE groups? Have these groups no Press Officers, or are they just plain lazy? There seems to be too much GLF reporting in Gay News. An organisation that does more harm than good to our campaign, it seems their one aim is to cause trouble. Does GLF now stand for: ‘Get Lost FREEDOM’? I would hate to see Gay News turn into a ‘revolutionary rag’. At the moment this news paper is what is just wanted by the more moderate majority, but please be very careful.

Remember, preach calm, reason and tolerance and we WILL win much much more support. It takes time but then thats life.

Kindest regardsNorman Redman.

Monday 10th July.

The Campaign for Homosexual Equality has sent the following letter to United States senator George McGovern.

Dear Senator McGovern,

We are much encouraged by the pledge you have given to work for full rights for homosexuals. We urge you to resist all pressures to drop this pledge from your programme or to accord it a lower priority.

Homosexuals are discriminated against and oppressed in nearly every country in the world and any action in obtaining full civil rights for homosexuals in any one country contributes to their struggle all over the world. We in Britain have been greatly encouraged by your adoption of our cause. We earnestly hope that at this stage you will not abandon it.

Many of us sincerely hope that you will obtain the Democratic nomination and be elected President of the United States. That you will use the office to liberate social injustices that oppress them.

We wish you well.

CHALLENGE 6 Dauphine Court Spencer Road Wealdstone Harrow

17th July, 1972

Dear Gay News.

I was very interested to read in your first issue about the furore which appeared to have developed over GLF’s representation on Jimmy Savile’s Homosexual Speakeasy program, and particularly of Michael Butler’s unfortunate involvement in this seemingly underhand business.

We were pleased to have eight members there and naturally we plugged Challenge. GLF’s only representation, out of their thousands of supporters, were three people who managed to squeeze in because they happened to be involved with Gay News.

“The BBC rang and asked me to find thirty gay people as representatives of as many gay organisations and groups as I know, excepting Gay Lib. They also talked about something called “Challenge” which I assumed to be a Gay Liberation Front venture”.

On March 16 our Secretary sent Michael Butler a letter which stated our aims and intentions very clearly. When he greeted us at the Speakeasy recording he apologised for not replying and for not taking up our invitation to come and speak at one of our meetings, so he knew what Challenge was at that time.

The suggestion that he thought “something called Challenge” was a “Gay Liberation Front venture” might possibly placate GLF by implying that in inviting Challenge he thought he was not really excluding GLF. But if one doesn’t think it right to exclude a group as large as GLF then why on earth have any part in the BBC’s plan to do so?

Love and peace. Hugh.

111a High Road.
Leyton,
LONDON,
E.15 2DF

27th June, 1972.

Dear Sir:

I don’t think I am far wrong in stating that the majority of “straights” think of homosexual’s as half-men, half-women, or men who want to be women, and visa versa.

So what does GLF do? They, above everyone else, confirm the attitude and opinion of the straights by encouraging their members to come to meetings, disco’s, gay-days, and demos, etc, in drag. What for? Only GLF knows.

I was once a regular attendant at most of the London GLF meetings. One in particular was the Disco at the White Lion in Putney. But I was completely shaken, confused and (yes) shocked by what I saw. Boys wearing false-eyelashes and bright red lipstick, some even in complete drag. And men with beards and moustaches wearing women’s dresses and a baloon or pillow up the front to stimulate pregnancy. This was too much for me and I had to get away.

Now let me get one thing clear. I am not anti-transvestite. To each his own, and I would not dream of imposing my own set of morals on anyone. Let everyone do their own thing. I don’t imprison anyone. Because, like the straights, if you imprison others, you also imprison yourself. Nor do I see any harm in a bloke dressed as a bird. It’s not wrong. It’s not right. It just is. But why come to GLF and put back the cause of homosexuals 200 years or more?

We all know that every man has homosexual tendencies. That is no surprise to anyone. But if we, as homosexuals, are to be taken seriously, we have to appeal to the straights latent homosexuality. But if they think that by “coming out” of their plastic shells that they too, will become half-women, half-men, then they will NEVER come out .. and we will never be free to live our lives the way we want to live them in our own natural and beautiful way.

For God’s sake, GLF, wake up! And do what’s right. To help ourselves, we have to help others to understand us. It is just as important to learn what not to do, than what to do.

I think the whole idea of GLF needs to be pulled down and re-shaped. Throw out the pot-smoking freaks who are no help to anyone, let alone themselves, and be a bit more, if I may say so, professional.

So, members of GLF who like coming in drag, the next time there is a public demo, think before you attend it in drag. Ask yourself: “Is this really the way to be accepted? I have no doubt that it ISN’T the way.
With Love and Hope,

THE WILD BOYS: A Book of the Dead. William S Burroughs (Calder & Boyars £2.50)

If you were in Marrakesh and heard about a gang of petrol-bomber boys, you too could start a fantasy of sexy teenage boys in the future. They wear only rainbow-coloured jockstraps and roam the bandit lands, a law unto themselves. You also want to be nostalgic about 1920 and a shy boy called Audrey who goes for a car ride with his mysterious schoolmate. You remember all those aloof youths in America and Mexico who seem to belong in another alien time-dimension and you transport them through the barriers. Then, if you are William Burroughs, you see it all like a movie, with all the rough-cuts and re-takes left in. and you get the marvellous kaleidoscope called The Wild Boys.

The plot only reveals itself two thirds through this short book, although all the ingredients are around from the beginning. In 1976 General Greenfield reads out a letter:

“Dear Mom and Dad:
I am going to join the wild boys. When you read this I will be far away.
Johnny.

Can we stand idly by while our youth, the very life-blood of our nation drains away into foreign sewers?” They couldn’t. Of the 20,000 soldiers who marched away, only 1,500 staggered back from the desert, the rest sent mad by a killer virus, and finished off by the boys with machine guns. That was the last Great American Crusade, a chapter which is a hilarious send-up of all the expeditionary forces that ever were.

Then in 1989, the story and civilisation is abandoned. Nobody is really alive. In Morocco the rich live in total luxury and cynically finance the saboteurs. The poor go to the wall and the CIA prowl knowledgeably but ineffectually around. But the wild boys are evolving by themselves. With the help of Mayan magic they have jerked through the barriers to gain the other time-dimension.

There are glider boys with laser guns, naked bow gun boys, shaman boys who ride the wind, and many more, including those who have control of beasts and bugs: “Five naked boys release cobras above a police post. As the snakes glide down, the boys move their heads from side to side. Phalluses sway and stiffen. The boys snap their heads forward mouth open and ejaculate. Strangled cries from the police box. Faces impassive the boys wait until their erections subside”. They can create offspring by pulling down mist to make flesh, forming from the anus outward on the prick of the entranced boy in the middle of the orgy ring. A great fantasy of penis power, but no practical ideas for GLF.

Many of the early scenes in the book are about innocent sex between ordinary boys, like the time when Johnny has crabs and Mark makes him undress. The same encounters take place again and again in successive paragraphs. like re-writes or an attempt to remember a long time ago. The action is always fast and ultra-graphic, but not really pornographic which would be the attempt to supply the reader with all the details for a substitute sex life. But for any male gay. this book is very very erotic.

Straight reviewers have carefully said that the sex nearly overwhelms the rest of the book; that it is of only academic interest to the heterosexual reader, and so forth. Let others write in praise of older women or nymphets (and without getting such censure). We can only rejoice at this celebration of one form of good sex. Read it once to enjoy the brilliant pictures passing by. Read it twice to judge for yourself if there is any significant theme other than Burroughs himself (probably not), and a third time for the writing of all the other sideshows. Read it once anyway.

Goals for Gays: if I were asked to select the one most conspicuously missing from the current scene, I’d plump for Credibility. New gay groupings and ‘gay leaders’ mushroom these days who takes them seriously? How seriously do they take themselves? Occasionally, all too painfully so. But humourless solipsism (or ego-tripping run riot) isn’t any substitute for a cool, realistic look at where we are in mid-1972 and where we should be travelling to.

In the past decade and a half, life has improved for gay people, though by no means far enough. In the middle 1950s homosexuality was a taboo subject, save for court reports usually in the more lurid ‘Sundays’ with such typical headings as “Scoutmaster gaoled for serious offences”, or “‘You Are Filthy Beasts’ Judge tells men”. Since then, we’ve advanced, via the tepid 1967 “two-consenting-adults-in-private” law, from the hush-hush criminal bracket to ‘underprivileged minority’ status; a situation still legally and socially quite inadequate but giving real scope, at last, for some solid self-help. Which is what “the homophile movement” is about. The movement, inevitably, is a mosaic, a spectrum: not a monolith. To progress it must, surely, work as a coalition in which every element, from ‘radicals’ to ‘fabians’, does its own thing in its own style and reserves most (hopefully all) of its powder and shot for the anti-gay instead of sniping at other gays.

For what are the facts? The facts are that we are still a generally disregarded, disliked and misrepresented minority whose prime need is for increased public comprehension and awareness of what not merely ‘gayness’ but warm, responsive human living is all about. For such a mammoth task (which amounts to the reeducation of a whole generation) we are lacking in resources, manpower and. to some extent, the necessary self-insight. To succeed, we have to make universal sisterly and brotherly love the prime principle of our gay politics as well as of our gay living. As a friend who’s done some hard and courageous work for our cause in Northern Ireland said after hearing the Jimmy Saville “Speakeasy” programme, “All that talk about better social acceptance sounds fine, but when, oh when, are we going to start treating each other better? That’s where it all begins . . . One youngster I know is currently very depressed by the values he feels expected to adopt from people, even of about his own age, on recently encountering the gay scene a sort of environmental pollution.” Or as another fledgling put it on contrasting his ideals with the meat market, “If you can’t beat them join them” – and promptly did. There’s food for thought here.

But even when we’re not being our own worst enemies, we have some pretty complacent friends as anyone who watched the recent BBC2 “Measures of Conscience” series must have concluded. What was remarkable about this lengthily researched exploration into the roles of Parliament and pressure groups in achieving the death penalty, abortion, homosexual and other reforms of the latter 1960s was the politicians’ obvious sense of high adventurousness at having dared to tackle such “unpopular” subjects and their seemingly universal lack of recognition that anything further remains to be done. In the final programme that white hope of all small liberals, Roy Jenkins, seemed to feel that about the right balance between the claims of personal freedom and state-enforced morality had now been struck and was apparently oblivious to the remaining inequalities in the laws affecting gay people. (It was of course the same Roy Jenkins who in a 1960 Commons debate said: “I wish that people would not speak as though one were representing a pressure lobby of homosexuals. In considering this question, I am not concerned only with what homosexuals want or even primarily with what they want (boldface mine) I am concerned with what I think is a reasonable law for a civilised country.”) And the by now well-known Arran-Abse duo reeked of its usual paternalism in the earlier programme on the ‘Wolfenden’ reform. What is simply astonishing about the whole operation is that none of its political protagonists seem even in retrospect to have considered the propriety of legislating for a substantial minority of three or four million people without contemplating the desirability, let alone the necessity, of endeavouring to obtain some representative views from homosexuals as such. Would they have dared to treat issues of racial discrimination similarly?

Speaking of Lord Arran and Mr. Abse, one wonders whether either of them will care to expound to readers of GAY NEWS the precise grounds for their vehement opposition to the notion of social clubs run by gay people for gay people (and, of course their straight friends) on non-exploitative lines? Anyone who remembers the flurry of protest which the mere mention of COC brought forth after law reform from both its sponsors might conclude that they regard ‘club’ as a four-letter word. Or maybe they think ghettos are created by those who are pushed into them? Would the exclusive establishments to which they belong welcome (or elect) self-proclaimed homosexuals?

The most effective way to eliminate ghettos, of course, is to break down the thought-barriers erected by the prejudiced or unthinking majority. If there were no exclusively heterosexual life-style and culture, there would be no need for anyone to think in terms of gay counter-culture. Which reminds me: some people do play this game to excessive lengths. I was once entertaining an acquaintance to a – so far as I was concerned – totally unerotic tete-a-tete. I put on the first record which happened to come to hand; the Max Bruch G Minor violin concerto, if I recollect aright. Immediately his eyes lit up with anticipation. “Ah!” he said, “you’re playing homosexual music”.

Whilst riding high on a wave of near overexposure in the press, and following a sell-out, critically acclaimed London concert, out comes Alice Cooper’s new album “School’s out’’. And after four previous albums, this one really makes it.

Musically it is far superior to anything they have done in the past, whilst Alice’s own songs and vocals have become more spectacular. The title track “School’s Out” is a teeny-bopper celebration of the start of the summer vacation. It might sound pretty banal, but wait till you hear it. Alice with his words and bizarre scream/vocals turns it into the Armageddon of all school breakups.

The group’s last albums have each had one or two outstanding tracks, but very little else. However, this time they succeed in producing an album which keeps your attention for more than just the opening track.

The second track is “Looney Tunes”, a seemingly innocent pubescent rock song, until the story takes a nasty twist. White-coated men come to take the song’s hero away. He’s just cut his wrists with a stolen razor.

This is followed by “Gutter Cat versus The Jets” which parodies the plot of “West Side Story’’; in fact it ends up being a straight rip-off from it. This theme reappears on the second side of the album, it’s influence being most noticeable in the symphonic “Grand Finale’’, which ends the album.

The record comes packaged in a facsimile of an old school desk, and the disc is itself tastefully surrounded by a pair of white non-inflammable paper knickers (see Grinspoon for further comments),

“School’s Out” will become one of the pop classics of 1972. It will be hated and ignored by the older and more staid generations, but loved by kids and those who appreciate the essence of what good rock’n’roll is all about.

Doug and Denis.

A PAIR OF WHITE KNICKERS, OR, A GIFT

I was surprised to find that inside the copy of Alice Cooper’s latest long-playing record that the nice man at Kinney (WEA) had sent me, there was a pair of white knickers.

I don’t know how they knew, but they fitted perfectly. In all this hot weather we are having at the moment it’s nice to have something so refreshingly cool to put on.

About a year ago there was a real collector’s item on record issued of the Japanese cast album of SCARLETT. Now the show has come to London under its better known title of GONE WITH THE WIND and confirms what one first suspected on hearing the Japanese album that this is the first big musical comedy without a score. Sure the list has 37 items on the programme but you try and recall any of them after you leave the theatre.

For those avid collectors of shows on records the wait for the ‘original cast album’ looks like being a long one as there are no signs of a record being released after 2 months of the shows arrival in town.

Somehow they have managed to condense the entire long film plot into the show’s just under 3 hours running time. All the well remembered moments are there, even including the burning of Atlanta which is handled quite well. There’s even a horse standing patiently on stage throughout the burning scene who somehow manages to ignore the gunfire, smoke and general mayhem that takes place around him. One presumes the animal must be both blind and deaf for he hardly moves a muscle.

Most of the scenes are played out of doors, probably to save money on interior scenes. For all that it is still a costly production with all the trimmings. The dancing is pleasant to watch, and so are the costumes, and if you really want to enjoy a proper singing voice the is Isabelle Lucas as Mammy.

I’ve saved the best till last, and June Ritchie is quite something in the role of Scarlett. Whether it was intentional or not she resembles the late Vivien Leigh so much facially that at times even her voice seems to take on the same low sing-song range that endeared her performance to millions. Miss Ritchie looks lovely, has a fair singing voice and she acts up a storm. At the finish one tends to forget the lack of tunes and remember only her dazzling performance as Scarlett.

‘Janis is gone and nothing can change that’; Janis the amazing, singing/screaming lady who took the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 by storm; Janis Joplin, one of the greatest white blues singers, died in October, 1970 aged 27.

During her short hectic career she managed to record five albums, number five being the second postumous release, and is a double album of live recordings. On record one, Janis sings with Big Brother and The Holding Company, the band she originally made it big with after moving to San Francisco from Texas. The second record is with the Full Tilt Boogie Band in accompaniment. On the latter, Janis’s voice is noticably better, being able to use her powerful voice in a far more effect and immediate way. But with Big Brother, her voice has the untrained, vital magnatism that made her the superstar she was later to become, and the superstar life she led contributed to her sad, untimely death.

On the second record, she desperately tries, between numbers, to be ‘one of the boys’, to be accepted, to be at one with the wild, restless people who were always part of her devoted audience. In her public life, she lived to the limit; singing, laughing, stomping the stage with a relentless frenzy, a bottle of Southern Comfort never far away. In reality, Janis was a lonely, depressive loner, all the screaming passion with which she sang out about love never helped her find the love and peace of mind she searched for and never found. A casulty of a world where the image of what you are, is more important than what you really are.

Many of the songs on this double set have appeared on record before, but only in a studio recorded form. ‘Try’ and ‘Get it while you can’ on side four take on wider dimensions through the freedom of a live performance, whilst ‘Ball and Chain’, which appeared previously on the ‘Cheap Thrills’ album, is one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard.

It is good that Janis’s death has not been exploited. CBS have waited nearly two years before releasing this memorial album, which presumably will be the last previously unissued recordings to be released (although a ‘Greatest Hits’ package will, in time, no doubt appear). As a recording it is a fine reminder of what Janis was all about, unfortunately as a memorial it is also a reminder of what can happen to isolated lonely individuals in an anonymous uncaring world. Sad also is the evidence on these recordings that Janis had so much more to offer. In ‘Ball and Chain’, recorded at Calgary in July 1970, Janis breaks off the song to deliver this message ‘…. that one day better be your life …. If you get it today you don’t want it tomorrow ….. ’cause you don’t need it….tomorrow never happens. It’s all the same fucking day’. An overdose of an opiate took a great singer and a lonely individual who never came to terms with her world.

Love Knoweth No Laws*

Owing to certain pressures put upon us by the law, we hold the right to cut, change or refuse to print any personal ads sent to us. We must also warn male ‘minors’ (under 21) that you may have unpleasant legal nasties unloaded on you, and us, if you attempt to use and reply for certain reasons connected with the meeting of someone for immoral purposes, namely making love. Apart from those antiquated legalities, men and women are welcome to use these columns as they wish.

Urgently Needed. 2 Large free or inexpensive rooms m Central London for Gay Social Activities, for both men and women. They will be needed continuously, but for at least 3 nights a week. Contact Gay News. Tel: 01-402 7805.

Employment

An Opportunity exists in Bath, Somerset, for a young man to join an expanding promotion company as an assistant to eventually take charge of pop group rehersal facilitie.s He should be between 17 and 23 yrs old, intelligent, willing and able to travel. Wages and career will be open to negotiation. For details please contact Nigel Bankford, c/o Cleveland Circus, 10a Monmouth Place, Bath, Somerset, with details etc. Tel: Bath 3513.

Young Man wanted who needs home, job, security, as part time personal assistant, general factotum, part time help in business. Essential, cooking, typing, non smoker. Advertiser mildly asthmatic. Write fully. Box 64

A few young people wanted for part-time domestic cleaning. Days only. (£1.65 per 4 hrs.) Phone 723 8842.

Refined young women/men living central/N.W. London for domestic work in private houses. No evenings or weekends. Phone 01-624 9774.

Classified Ads

Gay News, wishes to thank the management and staff at the Colherne and the Boltons (at Earl’s Court) and the Champion (at Notting Hill Gate) for their help in letting us sell Gay News in their establishments. Gay News will regularly be on sale in these three pubs in West London.

THE UNICORN BOOKSHOP.
50 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AQ.
For many literary delights, and regular stockists of Gay News. Send for lists (enclosing SAE) or pay them a visit.

WANTED. STREET SELLERS to sell, you guessed it, GAY NEWS. You make 3p a copy. We can’t sell them all ourselves. Contact Gay News, 19 London Street, London W.2. Tel: 01 402 7805.

You can regularly buy Gay News at Bookends. 23a Chepstow Mansions, Chepstow Place, London W2. Send S.A.E. for their lists of fantasy/sf/comic books.

York. Gay News available from Woof’s Stall, York Market, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Books announce that the full range of books and pamphlets from the French left wing publishing house of Maspero is now available in England. Orders can be quickly dealt with by post. Write for ‘Maspero Catalogue’ to BOOKS. 84 WOODHOUSE LANE. LEEDS 2. Phone 42483

TAROT cards come in different editions and at different prices. There are many cheap imitations, often incomplete. The Marseilles edition by Waddington is £2.65 which includes two decks of cards and a 49 page instruction manual. The Rider set by A.E.Waite is £2.25, now available for the first time since 1940 We also have at 30p, S.l.MacGregor Mathers book on the Tarot. A.E.Waites, Key to the Tarot is 60p. There is also his pictorial Key of the Tarot illustrating all cards at £1,95.We can supply by post. Money refunded if not satisfied. Order from: BOOKS, 84 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds 2.

AMSTERDAM is the gayest of cities and we have the finest gay male magazines and 8 mm movies available there. Write to us with a 5p stamp on the outside of your envelope and a 20p postal order inside it and we’ll send you our fully illustrated catalogue with a coupon for a free magazine. Lux Publications, PO Box 10269, Amsterdam, Holland.

BACK NUMBERS of GAY NEWS are still available. Send 13p (which includes postage etc.) for each back issue. Write Gay News Oldies, 19 London Street, London W2 1HL, stating which issue(s) required.
Did you miss out on a ‘Het’?

Night Assemblies Bill – PEOPLE’S FESTIVAL.
A great FREE festival shall be held commencing Saturday 26th August 1972 in the park that extends for six miles (over spendidly laid-out lawns and gardens, lakes and extensive woods) from Windsor Castle to Virginia Water (Great Windsor Park). Between one and five million people are expected. The festival will finish when those attending it so decide. For Details write:- Bill Dwyer, 40E Holland Road, (entrance Napier Road). London W14. All those artists and musicians who have played a part in the birth of our civilization of Love – Peace – Freedom are being invited to attend.

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This corner is really a long list – of places, people you might like to know about or one day need. We can only, of course, publish the information that comes to us. There’s a limit to what we can find out for ourselves, and too many pubs, dubs, movement offices and so on for us to visit. So – if there’s something we should now about, then you should ALL know about it. If your favourite pub or local group isn’t mentioned, write and tell us where it is and so forth. You can see from the listings themselves the sort of thing we think is of use and interest. These aren’t ads – we print all information free. The page is all yours!

CHE. An All-London Political Action Group is in the process of formation. Will anyone who wants further information on this campaigning group write to: Derek Brookfield. 7 Briston Grove, Crouch End, London N8 9EX.

Sappho meets every first Monday in the month, at the Museum Tavern 7.30pm, upstairs room, Great Russell Street, London WC1. All women are welcome, Sappho magazine is available at 25p for single copies, plus postage.(Subs rates are unchanged) from Sappho Publications Ltd., BCM/Petrel, London WC1.

Many local group organisers are wary of having their anmes and addresses publicised, so for the time being please contact all CHE groups via the national office: 28 KENNEDY STREET. MANCHESTER 2. Telephone 061-228 1985

G.L.F. Youth and Education Group meets on Mondays. Phone 837 7174 for details.

West London G.L.F. meets every Thursday at 8.00pm upstairs at the ‘White Lion’ pub. Putney High Street, just south of Putney Bridge. Tube Putney Bridge. Buses 14,22,30,85,85A,93, 220 and Green Line 718. BR Putney.
Disco there every Wednesday

This is a list of some of the pubs in London that regularly have Drag Acts. Information of out of London pubs featuring drag will be added to this list as we receive it. So if your local has something good happening at it, let us know; and that goes for you landlords as well.